Smile

She is small as a flame flickering

through open windows,

leaving a scorch in every room.

Her flirty smile, a little half-moon,

sharp as a guillotine,

carries her like smoke from place to place.

The world turns beneath her heels,

and she doesn’t stop.

She’s on to the next room,

the next life, where she’ll write

her name in the dust,

brush off the past

like cobwebs on her coat.

But she’s a wind that won’t be still,

a grin caught in the night

before morning comes,

a woman who takes nothing with her,

leaves only the scent of jasmine,

and the ghost of a laugh as she leaves.